St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-06-28
RAILROAD MATTERS.
THEY MAKE ANSWER.
The Land-Grant Railroads FinaI,y
Heard From.

WASHINGTON, June 27.--The secre-
tary OF the interior has received answers
from all the land-grant railroads named
in his rule dated May %, 1887, recurring
them to show cause on or before June
n, 1887, why the several orders of with
drawal from the settlement of the lands
within their indemnity limits should
not be revoked and the lands embraced
therein restored to settlement. The st.
Paul 81 Sioux City Railroad company
in its answer takes the position that on
Its railroad the power and jurisdiction
OF the secretary of the interior, as the
law stands, to restore to settlement any
lands within the indemnity limits of
that company are null until the grant
shall have first been finally adjusted.
1t holds that SO far as indemnity lands
are concerned, the acts of 1857, 1864 and
1865 being in pari materia, the last two
amendatOry of the earlier grant and all
operating upon precisely the same sub
lect. matter, that is to say, upon the Sc
lection OF indemnity lands, stand and
must be constructed together as one en-
actment and into that enactment in its
entirety is incorporated the provision
which congress saw fit to enact in
the SEVENTEEN section of the act
OF March 3, 1865, viz: the direction to
the secretary of the interior to withdraw
from market the land embraced by the
provisions of the act, and hence it fol-
lows that the withdrawal of all the
ldemnity lands lying within twenty
miles of the line of the road was a leg
islative. withdrawal. That when the
secretary of the interior issued the
necessary execution or administrative
order to carry that withdrawal into
effect he exhausted all the powers of
the land department over the subject
matter. That as the public land of the
United States is only diSpOsable under
direction OF congress it requires legisla-
tl0n by that body before its enactment
declaring the lands in question set
aside to this particular purpose can be
repealed, modified or set aside, and that
congress, not having repealed its legis-
!atlon with respect to the grant, any at
tempt on the part of an executive
officer by way of the revocation of the
act OF his predecessor is in direct oppo-
Sltlon to the expressed direction of con-
greSS. The st. Paul, Minneapolis &
Manitoba railroad company claims that
Its grant is not conferred to the state
OF Minnesota, and that it is entitled to
lands lying within ten miles of either
side or its main and branch lines ire
spectiye of political boundaries, but for
the purpose OF testing this question the
company some years ago instituted
sundry suits in the circuit court of the
United States for the district of Mime
sofa, which have since been appealed
to the supreme court of the United
States, where they are still pending;
that its indemnity selections, many of
them made some years ago, include all
the lands within the indemnity limits
of its main and branch lines and that it
is not owing to any fault or neglect
whatever on the part of the railroad
company that the adjustment of the
grant has not long ago been fully COM
pleted. The company suggests that as
selections have been made for all lands
within indemnity limits, such lands have
been placed sub-judico and, therefore,
are removed from the category of public
lands and cannot be made subject to adj
verse rights by homestead or pre-emp-
ton entries or in any other way until
the rights of the company thereto have
first been examined and adjusted.